


Two Sinners Sit Skinned

by tcwordsmith



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcwordsmith/pseuds/tcwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this a bit ago and I decided to post it finally.  I really love the setting of Fallen London, and these characters, Benny especially, just go so well down below.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Two Sinners Sit Skinned

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a bit ago and I decided to post it finally. I really love the setting of Fallen London, and these characters, Benny especially, just go so well down below.

the Laundress’s self-serve room is as dark and dank as the rest of this section of the Neath. It’s hardly even a proper room, one wall of rickety old washing machines and another of even more precariously stacked dryers flank either side of a heavy velvet curtain that presumably leads into the Laundress’s lair proper. A lock box with a hole gouged in the top just big enough to slide in your form of payment sits on a three-legged stool in front of the curtain. There are no signs at this establishment, you’re meant to know what it costs to absolve your sins.

Benny, as a long time patron of this particular Laundress, has the only stool available, reserved for him behind the curtain. For an extra handful of glim, it slides out with a tattered, lumpy cushion affixed to it and he can sit while he waits for the machines to wash his clothes. Today was an unexpected visit, a poorly timed run in with some lower Brass devils caught him without a change of clothes, just shy of laundry day. Glim paid, the stool appears with the tattered cushion covered in a pristinely white sheet. Even Laundresses must draw the line at customers sitting on their cushions in nothing but their shorts.

He sighs as he shoves even his hat (his favorite hat!) into the machine with a dark brown B scratched near the controls. Twice the normal amount of St. Zita’s Stain Zolvent follows the hat into the machine and he twists the knob before dropping heavily onto the stool. It’s probably too much to hope he doesn’t actually drip blood on the sheet, but he hopes anyway.

Not five minutes later, a form stumbles through the fog, cursing to itself. Benny shifts on the stool, uncomfortably aware of how exposed he is.

“Brass damned, bat cursed fucking Jack,” the form resolves itself into a man in a blood covered ragged jacket and...jeans? Jeans are uncommon in the Neath, no tailor worth an Echo will sew them. 

“Are you shitting me? Who the fu--” the man grouses as he approaches the machines and sees the one with a B is already in use.

“I’d apologize, but I wasn’t much better off when I got here,” Benny says, hardly polite but nothing anyone could complain about, trying to seem nonchalant about his scandalous state of undress.

The man stops with his fistful of rostygold hovering over the lock box. He then looks at Benny for the first time since he blustered into the Laundress’s. “Oh, uh. Hey,” he says, curling his hand around the rostygold and shoving it back into his pocket. Not the most Watchful fellow, Benny surmises.

“Hey, someone else get the jump on you?” He can’t help a little dig.

 

“No more’n they did you, man,” the man says, sullenly. He turns away from the lock box and contemplates the wall of machines.

“She hates it when y’use the wrong machine,” Benny offers, “S’why she labels ‘em.”

“Was it a Jack of Smiles?” the man asks, turning to face Benny and leaning against one row of machines.

Benny shakes his head, “Low-level Brassers who didn’t know the lay of the land.”

The man nods and pushes off the machines, but stays just out of arm’s reach while he considers Benny. Benny shifts and wishes he’d stopped by the town house for a spare set of clothes before coming out here.

“You caught a Jack though?” he finally asks, hoping to divert the man’s eyes.

The man shrugs, “Guess he didn’t know the lay of the land either. Wasn’t much of a Jack anyway.

“Where’d you get the stool?”

“Well, when you’ve been around as long as I have, you tend to curry a favor or two. The Laundress and I go way back, an’ she’s got a bit of the glimshine in her eyes,” Benny says, unable to help the smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.

“Makes sense,” turning, the man hefts a washing machine off the top of the last stack and sets it near Benny’s stool, “Never enough glim anyway. I’ll just wait until your stuff’s out to wash mine. Ain’t like another stain can hurt ‘em anyway.”

It’s easy, at first, for Benny to chalk up the man’s unaccountable talkativeness to his presumed upper hand because of Benny’s state of undress, but soon he has to wonder how long this guy has gone without company.

“You fight devils often around here?” the man asks.

“Not really. I’m usually fairly recognizable, an’ they keep their distance.

“Speakin’ of, you work at the Docks?” Benny knows he’s seen this man before, is more sure of it the longer they spend together. “I’m Benny Lafitte, Captain of the Melancholy Mandrake.” It’s risky, sharing out who exactly you are to a complete stranger, but Benny already learned that lesson the hard way--he’ll take the chance now.

The man shifts and rubs at a patch of still-drying blood on his face, “‘M down there some, when my employers send me.

“I’m Dean. Dean Winchester of Watchmaker.”

“Winchester,” Benny doesn’t quite school his face fast enough. He’s heard of a Winchester or two in his time. They’re ruthless, heartless, and disloyal, save for each other. Tend to be beholden to the Brass and the Church in equal measure. He thought they’d all headed back to the Surface though. “You the Hunter then?” he asks, suddenly glad his defenses don’t rely on ready access to a weapon.

Dean shakes his head, “I’m from Watchmaker, I’m anything you want if your gold’s red enough.”

Benny’s machine buzzes before he can come up with a reply, and he heads to empty it. The clothes are at least presentable now, nothing but a few ground-in stains left. He crosses to the dryers and tosses them in one, banging it twice to get it to start.

“Fuckin’ Jack. Not even sure I can salvage this shit,” Dean grumbles as he drops the rostygold in the lock box and heads for Benny’s abandoned washing machine and starts stripping. 

Though his connections suggest a certain strength of character, Benny still leans against the dryers and watches Dean peel off layer after layer of clothes and shove them in the washer. There’s only so much temptation he’s prepared to avoid. He coughs and says, “Use the solvent, works miracles I tell ya.”

Dean snorts but takes the offer and dumps in a few good measures, “Thanks man.” He turns on the machine and hops back onto his makeshift seat, “These shorts are too clean to fuck up sittin’ on the ground now,” he says with a tight smile.

Benny sits back down on his stool and cracks his neck.

“Fuck am I glad I didn’t just use any old machine,” Dean says, leaning back against a washing machine.

“She is a touch particular about her machines, but I bet she’d end up forgettin’ sooner than you think,” Benny replies.

“More of that way back experience of yours?” Dean asks.

Benny shrugs, “Might be. She cares more about payment’n she does the actual cleaning. She is the only Laundress who bothered to put in a self-service.”

“I could always use the room at the flophouse too,” Dean says picking at the dried blood flaking on his hands.

“Thought you said you were on the Hill?” Benny says, glancing over at the dryer.

“I said I was from Watchmaker, rent’s cheaper in Spite.”

“Flophouses are--well. I suppose we all have to live somewhere,” Benny bites his tongue, it doesn’t do well to speak ill of anyone’s accommodations. He remembers scraping for secrets and gold and glim.

“It’s not my favorite place, but it’s the only one that’s mine. I pay the rent on it, it’s mine free and clear every month,” Dean says quietly.

“Too true,” Benny replies. They lapse into silence.

A black cat slips out of the fog and curls around Benny’s legs. Dean’s eyes go wide and he scrambles back until his legs are up on the machine and he’s well out of the cat’s way.

Benny raises an eyebrow before addressing the cat, “How can I help you?”

The cat sniffs dismissively at Dean before making its way into Benny’s lap, a thousand thousand secrets whispering from it as it goes. Benny just waits, it’ll get to its point soon enough.

“I resent being a messenger,” the cat grumbles quietly.

“I appreciate your services, if you’d like to walk with me a ways I’ve got some fish from the Docks at home,” Benny says, careful to keep his hands to himself.

The cat gives him a look, “We could go now, I have a message I wish to be rid of.”

Benny huffs a laugh, “Would that I could, but you’ve caught me with my pants down. Or in the dryer, anyway. I have to wait for clothes.”

“Your kind are inscrutable--clothes are only a hindrance.”

“I agree but, needs mu--” a loud sneeze breaks through their conversation. Benny looks up and sees Dean has climbed on top of the stack of washers and is as far back as he can get without falling into the street or being seen. “Dean?”

“Don minb ne,” Dean sniffs loudly and flops onto his stomach.

Benny looks at the cat, “I hate to cut our conversation short, if I let you have my key, for now, to be returned, could you find your way to the town house? Or I suppose the Bazaar is closer. You could wait for me there and I’ll be along to hear your message as soon as I have clothes again.”

The cat looks up at Dean and if it could roll its eyes, Benny is sure it would, “Very well. You know, his kind makes no allowances for mine when we cannot stand the presence of them. But fine. I’ll wait at the Bazaar.” It takes the key Benny offers and hops down nimbly.

“It is not a message from the Duchess,” it offers as it slips off into the fog again.

“Most in the Neath don’t seem t’have allergies,” Benny says as Dean drops down from the machines.

“Yeah, well. I got ‘em. Cats are the worst, but I’m allergic to the fuckin bats too,” Dean says as he pulls his sopping wet clothes out of the washer and tosses them into a dryer.

Benny checks on his clothes and pulls out his hat since it’s already dry. “Didn’t your dad--”

“Look. I know you know but I don’t know how you know, and my family ain’t up for discussion okay?” Dean hops back up onto his machine and sniffs loudly.

“Sorry, sorry. I know a lotta people, forget my manners sometimes,” Benny holds up his hands placatingly and sits on the stool again.

A jangle of glim and gold breaks the uneasy silence and Dean and Benny turn and see an urchin with a hand in the lock box. Benny lunges off the stool trying to catch the child but Dean’s faster, jumping off the machine he was sitting on and making for the urchin’s fastest exit before the child can get there.

 

“Fuck is wrong with you?” Dean demands, scruffing the urchin by a jacket collar.

“Lemme go!” The urchin screeches. Dean sighs and sticks a hand in the urchin’s coat pockets, rummaging in each pocket in turn. “Lemme go lemme go lemme go Dean!” The urchin twists and squirms and wiggles and apparently knows Dean’s name. Benny watches the whole scene unfold with fascination.

Dean finds what he’s looking for and drops the urchin, but keeps a hand on the child’s shoulder, “Wait, what? Claire? S’that you?” He turns the child and gets a better look. “Fuckin’. Claire what are you even doin’ all the way out here?” He drags the kid back to the lock box and hands over the fist full of glim and gold the urchin tried to steal, “Put it back, you know better.”

“No! It’s mine I got it fair and square,” Claire insists. She tries to put the bounty back in her pockets but Dean stops her.

“You wanna meet the Laundress?” He asks ominously. Claire’s eyes go wide and she shakes her head vigorously. “The put it back,” Dean insists. She sighs and dumps the double handful back into the lock box.

“There, I did it, lemme go,” she says petulantly.

Dean drops to one knee and gets a better look at her, “Not before you tell me what you’re doing this far from Ladybones. Where’s Cas?”

“What’s it to you? You left forever ago,” Claire sniffs and wipes her face with the sleeve of her jacket.

“We talked about that, you know why I left,” Dean says quietly, Benny guesses he remembered they’re not alone and heads over to the dryers to start getting dressed whether or not everything’s particularly dry. “Look, whatever. Why are you stealin? I thought Cas got you into some kinda Watchful prep shit or whatever.”

Claire looks down and scuffs her worn shoes against the ground, “Didn’t want to go to school anyway.” She looks at Dean properly and giggles, “Where’re your clothes, Dean?”

“We’re at a Laundress’s, where do you think my clothes are, dweeb?” Dean scoops her up and sets her on the washing machine. “Stay there. Stay, I’m serious. We’re not done. I’ll stick you IN the machine if you try to run. I gotta talk to this guy a second.” Claire huffs and crosses her arms but doesn’t try to get down.

Dean moves over to the dryers next to Benny, “Check your shit before you leave, she’s not usually that careless and probably got half of whatever we have before she went for the lock box.”

Benny buttons his pants and looks up, “I ain’t too worried, I travel pretty light. S’long as all my clothes are here, I’m good.” He shrugs on his shirt and stretches before starting to button it.

“Yeah, well...” Dean can’t think of anything to say to that. Some weird part of him wants to explain Claire, but why would some random dude he just met care about who Claire is, other than she’s obviously a thief?

“DEAN GET AWAY FROM HIM,” Claire’s voice is shrill and insistent. Dean jumps back, instantly on alert.

“Jesus, Claire, what the fuck?” he demands, “This is Benny. He’s from the Docks. I’ve been talkin’ to him for like two hours.”

Claire’s whole body is shaking as she presses as far back against the washing machines as she can, “That’s a vampire, Dean. A blood sucker! He’s gonna eat us!” She glares at Benny, “Don’t eat us!”

Dean looks between Benny and Claire. Benny finishes buttoning his shirt and shrugs on his vest. “I ain’t gonna eat ya, sweetness,” he says slowly, deliberately.

”But you ARE a vampire, aren’t you! I saw you with Castiel,” Claire says, “he told me.”

Benny nods, “You know Castiel? He’s a hard one to pin down.” He looks at Dean.

“Cas an’ me go a long way back,” he says, stepping closer to Claire, “You’re a vampire?”

“Bats and brass, yeah, I tote around a set of fangs, but I’m not gonna eat you, I haven’t even tried the whole time we’ve been here. If I wanted to eat you, I woulda done it by now,” Benny says, starting to get annoyed with all the accusations.

Dean nods, “Okay, okay. He’s not going to eat anyone, and we’re not going to cause him any more problems, got it Claire?” He turns to look at the urchin at this, and she glares but nods.

“Well, I’m dry and bloodless, I’m gonna take my leave. Was nice meetin’ you, Dean. You’re not like any Winchester I’ve met before. Claire,” Benny tips his hat at the child, “I promise no vampire in the Neath will eat you.”

“You’ve met Winchesters?” Dean says, wanting to ask who, and why.

“You’re the only vampire in the Neath,” she says quietly.

Benny nods, “Indeed I am, and so it’s a promise I can keep, isn’t it?” She nods and he turns to Dean, “I’ve met three. Like I said, yer a different breed.” He pulls a small metal disc out of a pouch, “If you need somethin’, this will help. I hope we run into one another again sometime.” Benny puts the disc in Dean’s hand and saunters off into the night, he knows when his welcome’s outstayed. He’ll have to keep an eye on that one though, Dean Winchester.


End file.
